The Slow Death Of The Color-Coded Terror Alert System

The much-maligned color-coded terror alert system was seen as a flawed not only by the public or late night comedians, but by those who worked at the highest levels of national security—including former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.

You may remember that Chertoff served the Bush Administration until the day of President Obama's inauguration in 2009. Before he became the head of Homeland Security, he was in charge of the Department of Justice's criminal division during and after 9/11. This was the time of the Patriot Act—which he co-authored—and other dramatic additions to what he described as the "domestic architecture for preventing future terrorist attacks."

This week on Security Mom, Juliette Kayyem spoke with Chertoff about what was wrong with the system, so we might better understand the bigger challenges we confront in a world of mayhem—how to understand risk, and how to talk about scary things.